Oxidative stress and endothelin-1 in atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis and effects of renal angioplasty.

Aims: To examine biomarkers of oxidative stress (oxs), and endothelin (ET)-1, in hypertensive patients with atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis (ARAS) and to evaluate the effect of percutaneous transluminal renal angioplasty (PTRA).

Methods: Baseline measurements were made immediately before renal angiography in patients with suspected ARAS (significant ARAS, n = 83, and non-RAS, n = 59) and in 20 healthy, matched controls. In patients with ARAS, analyses were repeated 4 weeks after PTRA.

Predictors of long-term beneficial effects on blood pressure after percutaneous transluminal renal angioplasty in atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis.

Aim: This retrospective study evaluated long-term effects of percutaneous transluminal renal angioplasty (PTRA) in atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis (ARAS), and predictors of benefit on blood pressure (BP).

Methods: During 1997-2003, 234 patients (age 69+/-11 years, 138 [59%] males) underwent PTRA for ARAS at Malmö Vascular Centre. Cure was defined as diastolic (D)BP<90 mmHg and systolic (S)BP <140 mmHg off antihypertensive medication.

Lipid-lowering therapy is related to inflammatory markers and 3-year mortality in patients with critical limb ischemia.

To evaluate relationships between lipid-lowering therapy, inflammation, and 3-year mortality in critical limb ischemia (CLI), 259 consecutive CLI patients underwent evaluation of medication, tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-6 (IL-6), neopterin, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), 8-epi-PGF(2 alpha), and endothelin-1. Mortality was assessed after 3 years. Sixty-one patients (24%) were on lipid-lowering therapy and 59 patients (97%) on statins.

Activated protein C-protein C inhibitor complex in patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms: is it associated with diameter and growth rate?

Increased thrombin activation was documented in patients with abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). Activated protein C-protein C inhibitor (APC-PCI) complex, a new biological marker of thrombin generation, was measured in a population of 232 patients with AAA and a control group, and the association between aneurysm size, growth rate, and APC-PCI was studied. The patients were divided into cohorts according to AAA diameter and compared with a control group.

Renal angioplasty causes a rapid transient increase in inflammatory biomarkers, but reduced levels of interleukin-6 and endothelin-1 1 month after intervention.

Objective: To examine prospectively whether inflammatory biomarkers and endothelin (ET)-1 are increased in patients with renal artery stenosis (RAS), and to investigate how treatment with percutaneous transluminal renal angioplasty (PTRA) affects these variables during the first month after intervention.

Methods: One hundred patients with suspected RAS undergoing renal angiography were included. PTRA was performed if the trans-stenotic mean arterial pressure gradient was>or=10 mmHg.